Storm at the Edge of Time

by Pamela F. Service

  Arni jumped up. “It’s him! Urkar’s a horse!”

  “Ridiculous!” Tyaak said.

  “Why?” Jamie asked, thinking about blue-eyed sheep and owls. “He said that outside the circle nearly the only thing he had power to do was change shapes. And look at the eyes.”

  “It’s an animal. A blue-eyed animal.”

  Standing up, Jamie tentatively patted the horse’s neck. “All right, but it’s just the kind of animal we need to get out of here before anyone tracks us down.”

  “But there are three of us,” Tyaak pointed out.

  The horse turned and trotted off into the rain and wind. Jamie was about to snap that now they didn’t even have one horse, when they heard several whinnies and saw their horse returning, herding two others as if it were a sheepdog.

  Arni was jumping about like an excited flea. “He’s rounded up two farm horses for us. I get the gray!” Grabbing the staff, he burst out of their little shelter and swung onto the blue-eyed horse’s back.

  The shaggy brown horse nearest Jamie did not seem very happy to be there. It stood with head down and legs braced against the wind. Jamie guessed the gray horse had gotten it there with a little mind control and a lot of bullying. She patted its shoulder. It shivered but stayed still. Stepping onto a broken stone wall, she clambered awkwardly from it to the horse’s back.

  The blue-eyed gray nudged and nipped the remaining horse, a black mare, over to another wall so a reluctant Tyaak could do the same. “I cannot believe how primitive this is,” he muttered once he was mounted. “Using animals for transportation.”

  Jamie snapped, “So maybe you’d rather walk all the way back to the stone circle with sword-swinging Vikings at your heels?”

  The gray horse nickered, stepped over to their fire, and deliberately crushed it out with one hoof. Then it gave the other horses swift nips, and they were off.

  Once they were fully clear of the sheltering ruins, the rain and wind hit like a club. Jamie flattened herself against her horse’s neck, surprised that the animal could even stand up in this, let alone see where it was going. The sheets of rain were so thick, she could scarcely glimpse the horses ahead.

  After seemingly endless riding, she noticed that the rain, if not the wind, was slackening. Then, as if they’d stepped through a curtain, the rain stopped and the howling wind tore apart the clouds that had covered the moon. By its chill light, Jamie could see they were following a narrow mud-slick road cutting through grass and heather. She strained to see ahead and caught the glint of moonlight on two stretches of water.

  The horses moved steadily on; Jamie clung to hers for warmth as much as for safety. She was sorry she no longer had her cloak. It would be just as soaked as her other clothes, but still it would be one more layer against the wind. Her fingers were too cold even to feel the coarse mane she was clutching. She wondered how long it took for someone to die of exposure.

  A cry pierced the wind. A bird, Jamie guessed, but what would a bird be doing out on a night like this? The cry came again, clearly from behind. Awkwardly, Jamie turned to look.

  Riders. Four of them, coming fast. One called again, and she knew it was not a friendly hello. It was a Viking war ciy like the ones she’d heard during the raid.

  The gray horse jolted into high speed and the others followed his lead, making their riders clutch frantically to stay on.

  Jamie peered ahead through her horse’s flying mane. Yes, she could see it—the stone circle. Not far now. But their pursuers were not far, either.

  The ditch encircling the stones, stretched like a shadow across the ground ahead. Suddenly Tyaak’s horse stumbled and the boy went flying into the heather. Horrified, Jamie looked behind. The riders had nearly caught up with them. If they didn’t know who was carrying the staff, they might go for Tyaak. She yanked at her horse’s mane, trying to make it turn, but it charged straight ahead until it met the gray horse charging back.

  One Viking had already dismounted and was running with upraised ax toward the fallen boy. Tyaak struggled to his feet and tried to dodge, but the gray horse, with Arni clinging to its back, galloped past him, reared, and brought hooves down on the startled warrior. Through the screaming wind, Jamie heard a cry and a muffled thud as the man toppled to the ground.

  Jamie saw another rider bearing down on them. She kicked her horse and it shot off willingly, but in the wrong direction. Yanking at its mane, she tried to turn it toward the stone circle. The other rider was close behind her now, but cutting toward them came the gray horse.

  Jamie tugged at her horse again, and it turned so suddenly she found herself slipping from its bare back and flying onto the heather-carpeted ground. Not very softly carpeted, she thought as she lay breathless, looking up at the racing moonlit clouds.

  The Viking reached her. Coldly he looked down from his horse, his eyes like pools of darkness. It was the mustached blond from the island. Then his attention snapped toward Arni, who was barreling toward them, yelling and brandishing the staff over his head. Jamie saw the man’s face light up. He had seen what he sought.

  The blond warrior raised his own cry, drew his sword, and drove his horse toward Arni’s. The little gray veered away, but not soon enough. The sword swept down toward the boy and all he could do was raise the thin wooden staff to ward off the blow.

  Steel met wood in an explosion of light. Fire ran down the staff to the sword and ignited the warrior as if he were a fuel-soaked rag. His horse reared in terror and threw the flaming man to the ground.

  Jamie staggered to her feet, then turned away, trying not to be sick. Nearby, Tyaak was trying, too, and failing.

  Then Jamie remembered the other two warriors. Like dark shadows, they were closing in. Arni, still clinging to the gray horse, feebly shook the now darkened staff at them. They halted. Jamie and Tyaak both took this chance to run for the stone circle. They were close now, and with every stride they were coming closer. Jamie heard hooves but didn’t dare turn. Just think about feet, she told herself, feet pounding over heather and moon-pale grass.

  The ditch. Down it and up again. Through the circle of stones, Tyaak just ahead of her. She turned. Arni and the gray reached the ditch and leaped it. Behind them, the two riders were about to follow.

  Then they were gone. No, Jamie realized, they were probably still there, leaping over the ditch. It was their quarry that was gone. As the mists swirled and spun, Jamie sank shakily to the ground. She had never been so happy to be miserably dizzy in her life.

  The mist cleared to show the changeless stones and the high, crystalline stars. The silence was so deep it almost hurt her ears. Jamie looked around her. Arni and Tyaak were nearby; but in place of the horse, Urkar stood in the center of the circle, black staff in hand. He raised it point downward and jabbed it into the earth.

  Jamie cringed against an expected explosion. But the earth only trembled slightly and was still.

  As though reading her thoughts, Urkar turned their way. “It’s just one staff. I need three to do anything worth doing.”

  “It did pretty well back there,” Arni said quietly. “Correction: You did pretty well. The staff has its own little ways, but it was your power it fed on.”

  “I did that?” Arni gasped. “I cremated that man?” “With a little channeling from the staff. But don’t fret. If he had guessed the kind of threat you posed, he would have tried something of the same on you. He had the power, that one, though it came from the other source.”

  With a casual pass of his hand, Urkar started a small campfire. “But never mind all that. You succeeded. And quite frankly, I wasn’t at all sure that you would, family or not. Come, warm up a moment.”

  Suddenly the flames twisted flat as a rush of wind howled through the circle. Spinning around, Urkar raised his arms and yelled something into the sky. The wind faltered and died away.

  “The storm!” he explained angrily to the huddled children. “It’s drawing closer. I can’t stop time, for all that I can move
within it. At its front end, time is still moving forward, and that is where the storm will break. You must be off after the second staff.”

  Even Tyaak could only groan in protest, but now his groan was one of three.

  Urkar sighed. “Mortals! You need to rest and recover. Get over here by the fire, then.”

  Willingly Jamie did so, slumping into an exhausted heap on the heather. The heat of the fire seemed to reach into every fiber of her. She closed her eyes, nestling into a cocoon of healing warmth. Dimly she heard Urkar’s voice ranting about patience. It seemed as distant as the stars.

  Chapter Eleven

  What woke her was change, like falling asleep in a steadily moving car and waking when it stops.

  There was cold and the noise of wind, vast outdoor wind. Jamie rolled over on the crackly, pungent plants. She opened her eyes.

  It was night. She sat up. A half moon lit up the broken stone circle and the white tourist placards.

  Confused, Jamie sat on the cold ground, torn between delight and startling sadness. It had been a dream. She’d gone out to the stone circle to defy those petty signs. She’d fallen, hit her head, and had this long, incredibly real-seeming dream.

  It was over. She was safe, and yet she felt she’d lost something precious. Even the idea of doing things supernatural instead of just seeing them wasn’t all that bad. But that had been a dream, too. And it was a great relief to know she would not be lost in some dead time, pursued by terrifying powers. She was finally safe.

  Or she would be as soon as she trotted back to their house, let herself in, and crawled into bed. Cautiously Jamie stood up, but the dizziness had gone. She took a few steps toward the road.

  “So this is your world, is it?”

  She almost screamed. Spinning around, Jamie stared into a dark greenish-brown face. Beside the alien boy, a smaller red-haired boy smiled excitedly. “A lot more stones have fallen. Do priests still tell you to stay away from here?”

  Stunned, Jamie stammered, “No, just tourist signs. You’re real.”

  “Believe me,” Tyaak said sarcastically, “I am just as delighted to see that you are real, too. I had almost convinced myself that some native insect had bitten me and I was having a toxic hallucination.”

  “You two are awfully hard to convince,” Arni said. “Magic is real. I guess it isn’t always fun, but it is real.” Jamie thought the boy sounded a little less enthusiastic than he had before, but she couldn’t blame him. Before “magic” came into her life, the only killing she’d seen had been on TV.

  Tyaak ran a hand through his hair, and Jamie noticed it wasn’t nearly as bristly as earlier. It must have had some sort of treatment, which all the wind and rain had taken out. She would have felt smugly amused at the thought if she hadn’t remembered the treatments she’d gone through herself to produce various hair looks. Anyway, she decided, Tyaak’s almost limp hair fit in better with the jeans and jackets all three of them now seemed to be wearing.

  “That Urkar person infuriates me,” Tyaak said, giving his hair a few more futile fluffs. “He never once thanks us for risking our lives to retrieve his stick; then he gives us no choice about coming here, either. Suppose we refuse to do any more of this?”

  A tempting idea, Jamie thought, trying not to recall that last onslaught of storm. “I suppose that’d be all right with me. This is my world, after all, and I could just go about my business. But if we quit now, I’m not sure how Urkar would feel about returning you two. You’re right, he’s not big on gratitude.” With a sly smile, she added, “But maybe you’d come to love my Earth and fit right in.”

  Tyaak shot her what on any planet would have been a dirty look. “So where do you think this stick is on this precious world of yours?”

  That shook her. She hadn’t given it a thought. “How should I know? It’s a big world. Some farmer could have picked it up for a fence post, or some tourist could have taken it halfway around the world as a souvenir.”

  Arni’s eyes opened wide. “Halfway around the world? Do you think that’s happened?”

  “No,” Jamie said firmly, then wasn’t sure why. “I mean, I have no idea.”

  “Oh, but you do, I think,” Tyaak said with an infuriating smile.

  She glared at him. “All right, maybe I do have some sort of hunch that it’s still on this island, or maybe I just hope that it is, so we don’t have to go traipsing all over the world looking for a stupid stick. What about you, Mr. Navigator? What direction is it in?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “Yes, you could! East, west, south, north. Try, or you’ll never get back to that fancy superior planet of yours.”

  He scowled at her, but closed his eyes and stood still for long moments. Then he opened his eyes, shrugged, and waved an arm to the northeast. “Perhaps that way, but just as likely not.”

  Jamie frowned. That didn’t help much since from what she remembered of the map, much of the island was that way. She turned to Arni.

  “And what about you? Any feel for whether it’s up high or down low or anything?”

  He didn’t have to close his eyes. “I don’t know about high or low, but there are people about. Lots of people.”

  “How many?” Jamie pressed. In his world, lots of people could mean a dozen.

  “Lots and lots. And lots of … of space, too. No, maybe not space. Things that take up space.”

  “Like buildings?”

  “Maybe,” he said a little doubtfully. “Built things, anyway.”

  Jamie thought a moment. “Lots of people and buildings could mean a town, and there aren’t many on the island except Kirkwall and what’s-its-name, the port. Only Kirkwall’s in that direction, though, so let’s start there.”

  Tyaak was again trying to fluff up his hair. “Are you planning to walk, or do you have horses too?”

  Jamie sniffed. “This century isn’t the Dark Ages, you know. We have cars and buses.”

  “Gasoline-driven, I suppose? How primitive.”

  “Well, feel free to walk if you want. But we’re not going anywhere just now, except back to my house.” She thought a moment and asked, “Do you suppose it’s the same time now as when I left here?”

  “It was for me,” Arni said. “I didn’t lose any time at all in Urkar’s circle. A great magic worker like him could probably put us down at any point of time he wants.”

  “Well, I hope so,” Jamie said, starting off toward the gate. “Otherwise I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do—to my parents and probably the police.”

  “Police?” Arni questioned.

  “People who enforce law’s and look for missing people. Let’s go.”

  Walking along the road, Jamie enjoyed the feel of paving underfoot. Arni apparently did too. He skipped on ahead. Then looking himself and the others over he said, “This is what you people wear? Girls, too?”

  “Yes, and I like it that way. I don’t miss that heavy itchy wool skirt one bit. But the jeans and jacket look great on you. You’ll fit right in.” She studied Tyaak. “You might, too, but you’ll have to keep the jacket hood up over your hair.” She wasn’t as sure about Tyaak’s complexion. He could be a tourist, maybe, who was perpetually seasick.

  As she walked, Jamie realized that although she was sleepy, she wasn’t as exhausted, wet, and bruised as she should have been. Urkar’s fire was pretty good stuff. She was thinking about Urkar when she saw her house down the road and suddenly realized she couldn’t just march in with two strange boys and hide them in a closet.

  “Look, you two are going to have to wait outside somewhere until morning and then knock on the door, like we’ve arranged to have you visit or something. Maybe you’re friends I’ve made on the island, and we’ve arranged to go to Kirkwall together.”

  “I have no desire to spend more time outside, thank you,” Tyaak said. “Is it ever anything except cold and windy on this planet of yours?”

  “Hey, don’t judge the whole planet by the Orkney Islands,
” Jamie protested.

  Arni piped up, “And don’t you two run down Orkney. When my father and Thorfinn went to Rome they said the people and weather there were soft—it was just the sort of place that ought to be plundered. Orkney people are tough.”

  And stupid, too, Jamie thought, if they don’t take the first chance they can to leave. But she kept quiet. Orkney was proving a more unusual vacation spot than Florida.

  “There’s a carriage house or something behind our place. It’ll keep you out of the wind, and anyway it’s supposed to be spring here.”

  Predictably, Tyaak didn’t like his lodgings, but Jamie didn’t really care. She was only as tired as if she’d been out half the night defying tourist signs, but that was tired enough. Her father was still snoring when she slipped back inside the house and climbed the stairs. To that rhythm and the steady roaring of wind outside, she fell into a deep, restful sleep.

  When Jamie woke in the morning, wind was still riffling over the slate shingles. As she lay in bed, pictures fell into her mind, and she played with them like fragments of a dream. Only they didn’t fade as the minutes passed, but became more clearly linked together.

  All her life, she had wanted to be something special. Yet now, the knowledge that she was special seemed more frightening than her earlier fear of being a nothing. Being plain unremarkable Jamie might have been disappointing, but it wasn’t terrifying.

  But it wasn’t exciting either. Now, both terrified and excited, she quickly got up and dressed.

  A muffled knock downstairs. Moments later her mother came up, a slightly puzzled look on her face. “Jamie, there are a couple of boys at the door who say you arranged to go with them into Kirkwall.”

  “Oh, yes,” Jamie said stepping onto the landing. “I met them yesterday when I was … exploring around and got talking, and we sort of decided it would be fun to go into town and look at the shops and stuff.”

  She hurried downstairs. Two boys stood in the dark entiyway gazing around. The taller one had his hood pulled up to shadow his face, but one strand of hair had escaped like a blue-black snake.